A true Red Sox legend

GREATS OF THE GAME: 1967 Impossible Dream team stars Jim Lonborg (Cy Young), Carl Yastrzemski (AL MVP, batting champion) and George Scott (Gold Glove) pose with Manager of the Year Dick Williams in April 1968.

The wire-service obituary that appeared on websites yesterday led with the fact that Dick Williams managed the Oakland A’s to a pair of World Series titles. A great accomplishment, to be sure.

But in Boston, we know better.

Whatever Williams did in Oakland or San Diego or any of his other stops en route to the Hall of Fame never will equal the enduring impact he had here.

Without Williams, the Impossible Dream remains unattainable. Yaz, Rico and Lonborg don’t become icons. The Red Sox fail to capture the region’s imagination. Maybe today they’re just another team. But all of those things did happen.

And it started 44 years ago with the man who brashly declared, “We’ll win more than we lose.”

That was certainly saying something. The 1967 Red Sox were no one’s pick to contend in the American League. They hadn’t won a pennant in 21 years, were coming off a ninth-place finish, and hadn’t placed higher than fifth in nine years.

Williams whipped them into shape with an abrasive style that never would fly today.

The importance of that season cannot be overstated. The Sox could barely draw 10,000 fans. With Russell’s Celtics wrapping up their decade of dominance and Orr’s Bruins about to begin theirs, the Sox risked a spiral into irrelevance.

But Williams’ charges wouldn’t let that happen. With Carl Yastrzemski winning the Triple Crown and MVP, and Jim Lonborg claiming the Cy Young, the Sox battled to the final day.

When Rico Petrocelli backpedaled to catch the last popup against the Twins — immortalizing Ned Martin’s call of, “There’s pandemonium on the field! Listen!” — the Sox were just hours from the pennant. They sealed it that night when the Angels beat the Tigers.

That season became something passed from fathers to sons. Those who weren’t around in ’67 had “The Impossible Dream” record with the funky painting of Yaz on the cover and every memorable call preserved on vinyl.

Billy Rohr was the kid pitcher from Toronto who knocked on the door of fame. Tony Conigliaro, Tony C.? One August night, the kid in right lay sprawling in the dirt. And don’t even get us started on the man they call Yaz, who had his own Jess Cain-penned theme song.

There’s a generation of 60- and 70-year-olds who’ll always believe the art of managing begins and ends with Williams, even if his methods didn’t always agree with his players.

“I don’t know that the way he did things was always the right way,” admitted former Sox catcher Jerry Moses last night. “He just wanted to be tough. He had no empathy for anything. Mediocrity was not in his repertoire. He wanted it perfect. Some people, when he jumped on them, it energized them, and some guys went back the other way. They couldn’t take it.”

Williams’ irascibility is now part of his charm. He wasn’t in the business to make friends, just to win.

“I wasn’t always sure that Dick liked me,” Moses said. “But in the game it’s not whether they like you or not, but whether you can play or not. He was strong in the way that he handled all of us.

“I can remember in 1969 when I came up to stay, I was supposed to be backing up Russ Gibson and he had me doing something else I didn’t think I should be doing. He came over to me and said, ‘I don’t think you understand. You can either do what I tell you to do or you can go back down to Triple A.’ And I said, ‘OK, I think I’ll do what you tell me to do.’

“That’s how he treated most people. But you can’t take away what he did for the 1967 pennant, because it wasn’t expected at all.”

And that, more than anything Dick Williams did anywhere else, always will be his legacy.